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Author's Note: It's an update overload! I so want to post the next three chapters right now. Anyway, thanks to all who are still reading this and who have taken the time to review, I hope that you're still enjoying it as much as I'm enjoying writing it.
Nifty fact for the day: Agilipollao is Spanish for fool or a stupid person.
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Bill Croghan was one of those men who was born to be a cop. There wasn't a soul alive who could truthfully deny it. Police work was all he had ever done, all he had ever wanted to do and he was damn good at it.
He had a wall full of medals and plaques for the things he had accomplished during his career. Exemplary Service, Valor, Wounded in the Line of Duty, Citizen's honor, Lifesaving, Distinguished Service; he had an award for them all, plus many, many others.
He prided himself on his attention to detail and his ability to see things in a case that others didn't. He could find clues that other cops were blind to and he could solve cases that had other cops stumped. He may have been getting on in years, only 5 left until he could retire as a matter of fact, but he was still sharp as a tack.
And this crime scene made him furious.
The area was a disaster, dead men everywhere. All of them shot to hell and all of them bearing the tattoos that marked them as Sacerdotes De la Calle. The bodies had been arranged almost lovingly with arms crossed and a penny in each eye.
He had already talked to CSI and they had told him some very disturbing facts. The guns used in the hit were .9mm, the same caliber that had taken out all the Street Priests in the previous attack. They had also gotten samples off all the blood except one spot where the splatter had been altered with a foreign substance, making a clean sample impossible. Croghan would be willing to bet his balls that the substance turned out to be ammonia.
This shot everything he had told that goddamn FBI agent right to hell. His theory was now officially shit.
Right on time, he thought sullenly as Agent Smecker walked onto the scene, that confident, cocksucking smile plastered across his face.
Just like the first time they had met, the sight of the agent sent a bolt of righteous indignation through Croghan. The Street Priests were his case, He had been working on them since day one and he hated the idea of turning all his hard work over to some big-shot, FBI faggot.
He could almost see months of hard work unraveling before his eyes. Taking in a deep breath, he closed his eyes and shoved his emotions away. If there was ever a time to be a cop, this was it.
He had a hunch that whatever had happened here was the same thing that had gone awry with the first drug deal. The pennies were new though, an eerie touch to the gruesome crime scene.
Croghan frowned as something nagged at the back of his mind. Pennies. What was so special about the goddamn pennies?
Jesus, he was getting old, that tip of the tongue feeling was becoming more and more frequent, and he was sure it was only a matter of time until he was drooling on himself and eating Jell-o in some godforsaken retirement home.
"Croghan, glad to see you're here." Said Smecker, approaching him and holding out a hand.
"You bet." Croghan said, forcing himself to shake the outstretched hand and resisting the urge to wipe it on his pants afterward. "Anything I can do for you, Agent?" Damnit, those words burned, leaving a bitter aftertaste like bile.
The agent shook his head, already turning away, slipping headphones over his ears, and Croghan blinked as what had been tickling his memory struck with a jolt.
Smecker had asked him about pennies once, 'Where are the pennies?' to be exact, while he was looking at the evidence from the first crime scene. At the time, he had dismissed it as bullshit FBI jargon, but now, in light of this calamity, the comment made perfect sense.
That son-of-a-bitch knew what was going on here, he knew exactly what was happening and had all along.
Fighting the urge to walk right up to the lying piece of shit and punch that smug smile clean off of his face, Croghan forced another deep breath into his lungs.
It wouldn't do any good to say anything now, he had no proof that Smecker was doing anything off beam, but it was only a matter of time until the proof presented itself. One thing that 35 years on the force had taught him was that if you waited long enough, a person would incriminate themselves more efficiently then you ever could.
Maybe things would work out just fine after all.
Croghan smiled widely, kneeling down to inspect one of the bodies, a huge man, bald and covered with tattoos, with a bullet right between the eyes.
"Pitiful bastard." He murmured to the corpse as he removed the pennies from its sunken eye sockets, rubbing the coins thoughtfully between his fingers.
The glint of light off of something beside the corpse caught the detective's attention. Leaning over the dead gang member, he reached around its head and retrieved the object, holding it up to inspect.
Light sparkled through a bright rainbow of crystal beads interwoven with silver wire, and Croghan's smile widened. That certainly didn't belong in this slaughterhouse. He pocketed the bracelet and rose to his feet, almost colliding with Townsend, who had just arrived on the scene.
"Where the hell have you been?" he snapped, giving the younger man a disapproving glance.
"I got held up." Said Townsend, offering him a Styrofoam cup.
Shaking his head, he accepted the cup and took a long swallow. "Boy, you're never going to get anywhere in this precinct if you don't start acting like a professional. People have to take you seriously if you ever want to advance, son."
"Yeah." Townsend said, avoiding the older man's eyes. "It won't happen again."
"Well, let's see if CSI has anything else for us. We'll go and have a chat with the ME as soon as we get back to base too, see if he can't shed a little light on the subject, so to speak."
Townsend nodded, heading toward the nearest CSI agent. Following him, Croghan gave Smecker a firm pat on the back as they passed the agent and then reached into his pocket, running his fingers over the strand of beads there, his smile resurfacing.
Yes, things looked like they would work out just fine after all.
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Arturo Mendoza sat quietly at his desk, his face tranquil as he concentrated on the chessboard before him.
It was a work of art; each piece carved out of the finest European crystal, perfect in every detail, right down to the last glittering facet. It had been a gift many years ago from a very powerful drug lord back in his native Columbia, an offering to entice Arturo away from the Sacerdotes De la Calle and into the man's own prominent cartel.
Arturo had taken the gift and admired it lovingly before smiling widely at the drug lord, raising his gun, and blowing the agilipollao's head off for daring to presume that he could possibly be bought.
He was a firm believer that one does not see the world as it is, but rather sees the world as they are, and any man who believed that you could simply turn someone away from his life's work with a paltry bribe was not a man worth doing business with.
Ah, but he loved the chess set.
Thoughtfully he moved a piece from the white side of the board, a clear crystal knight, and then countered it with a darkened pawn, enjoying the way the light glimmered through the pieces, creating rainbows across the frosted crystal board. This was shaping up to be an invigorating match.
He watched the chess game gradually unfold with interest. To him, it was the ultimate game of strategy and business, a perfect illustration of true life. Just like in life sometimes sacrifices had to be made, and sometimes you could take out your opponent in a single decisive move. Arturo had always felt he could respect a man who played a good game of chess.
Without warning, the door to his office burst open and Arturo frowned as one of his message boys rushed in, thin face flushed and sweaty, dark hair unkempt and moist with sweat.
Esteban was nearly a man now, but Arturo had known him since he was a recién nacido, fresh from his mama's womb and would never think of him as anything but a boy.
"Arturo!" he said, his tone frantic, and then stopped, eyes widening, "I mean, Señor Mendoza.
Arturo frowned, his attention never leaving the chessboard. "Esteban, what have I told you about knocking?"
The boy stopped, blinking. "I'm sorry Señor Mendoza, but this is . . ."
Arturo held up his hand, silencing the boy as he moved another chess piece. "Whatever it is, Esteban, it can wait."
"But Señor Mendoza . . ."
"Esteban!" he said loudly, irritated, his hand still held up for silence, his mind still on the board. After carefully positioning a dark bishop, he glanced up, giving the boy a disapproving look.
"What are you doing?" he asked, "You come into my office without knocking, interrupt my chess match and for what? To distract me? Why? We have talked about this again and again . . ."
"I'm sorry Señor Mendoza," Esteban interrupted, his voice shaking with a mixture of fear and excitement, "but Ramiro just got word about last night's envío, the shipment."
Arching an eyebrow, Arturo moved another piece, countering the bishop. "And?"
"They're all dead, Señor."
"Dead?"
"Si. The policía said that all the Sacerdotes were killed and that nobody else was there, just like before."
"Just like before." Arturo mused as he returned the piece he had just moved to its original place and selected another. "Really?"
"Si."
"That's very interesting, don't you think, Esteban?" he said, moving the new piece across the board.
"Ramiro said it was fantasmas, ghosts that come in and kill them all."
Chuckling a little, Arturo raised an amused eyebrow. "Fantasmas, maybe they are indeed. Esteban, go and tell Ramiro to arrange another meeting with our officer friend, then tell him to get everyone together. I think it's time we all had a little conversation."
Esteban nodded then scurried out of the room, leaving the door wide open behind him.
With a sigh, Arturo rose to his feet and closed the door. He loved Esteban like he would his own son, the boy had a great deal of potential, but sometimes he threatened to drive Arturo insane.
Frowning he settled back into the comfortable leather of the chair and turned his attention again to the chessboard, thinking about the envío and the men that had ruined it.
He had thought this problem was taken care of, yet here he was with another group of dead soldiers, some of his best this time, and another mess to clean up. This was completely unacceptable.
Once he could contend with; once was a mistake, an unfortunate twist of fate. But twice? Twice and there was someone to blame. Twice meant that someone was looking for him, seeking him out, and destroying his life's work with bullets and bloodshed.
Who were these fantasmas, these ghosts that were so determined to keep him out of the Estados Unidos? Somehow, these men had risen from the ashes of a carefully planned explosion to return him, once again, to square one.
Whoever they were, he mused, it was only a matter of time before he found them and made them understand exactly what it meant to cross Arturo Mendoza. Oh, yes, he would find them and there would be hell to pay.
The sound of a crystalline crinch drew his attention, and looking down he frowned at the shattered knight he was holding between his fingers and at the blood running down his hand, dripping steadily onto the chessboard.
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